Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 74573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
But unfortunately, my mother passed down her thyroid to me. A thyroid that hadn’t functioned correctly since I was nine years old.
From that point on, I’d put on weight. A lot of it.
So much, in fact, that I was now known as Turner-Turner to the people at school.
Turner-Turner meaning I was as big as two people, that way they called me Turner twice. Or sometimes Turner Squared.
“I don’t know what you want me to do about it, baby,” my father whispered brokenly. “If I could stop them, I’d do it. I’d tear every one of those fuckers’ hearts out and feed it to them. But you’ve forbidden me to say a word or step in. I’m running out of options.”
“Not one option,” I pointed out.
My father’s face went stormy. “You’re not getting surgery. You’re sixteen. People die from surgery!”
I raised my hands up in a praying position and gave my father everything I had.
“Please.”
He looked sick to his stomach.
“I don’t want to lose you, baby,” he whispered.
I smiled sadly. “Daddy. I’m just telling you now, if this keeps on, you might. I can’t live like this. Being in your shadow makes my heart literally break. I’m the racer’s fat kid. I know you’ve read the media reports lately.”
Dad closed his eyes, unable to deny that one.
“Please, Daddy. Please,” I begged.
“Let her, Garrett Lee. Just let her.”
I looked over at my mom, who had her back straight and her eyes wide open.
For once she was being firm with my father.
He realized it just as well as I did.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “But if anything happens to you, I’m going to be pissed.”
I smiled, the first genuine smile that’d graced my face in a very long time.
“Thank you, Daddy,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
Chapter 1
I always see all these ‘before coffee’ posts and wonder what kind of magical coffee y’all are drinking that turns you into a decent human being. Me? I’m an asshole all the time.
-Text from Turner to Jubilee
Turner
“What are you doing?” I hissed at my best friend, Jubilee.
She looked at me with strained patience.
“I’m going to go say hi to Castiel because that’s what nice people do, Turner,” she hissed.
I sneered at her.
“He’s not nice,” I told her.
“He’s very nice…to everyone but you, apparently.” She shook her head.
That was true. He really was nice. To everyone but me.
Granted, our relationship hadn’t started out on the best foot.
It all started when he’d pulled me over and given me a ticket for ‘reckless endangerment.’
Apparently trying to get around a slow-moving vehicle with a Chipotle burrito in one hand and my mascara wand in the other wasn’t acceptable behavior. I’d only been going sixteen miles over the speed limit, but since it was raining he’d said I wouldn’t be able to control my speed. I mean, Jesus, I tried to slow down and get back behind him when he sped up, but there was another man right behind me who was wanting to pass, too. So I sped up even faster. Sue me.
Which was a bunch of bullshit.
I could drive better than he could only dream of.
Water. Speed. Snowstorm.
Nothing affected me.
If I could handle a stockcar at a hundred and thirty plus miles an hour in the rain, I could handle my vehicle—which had excellent safety features and handled like a goddamn dream—at seventy-two miles an hour.
Not that Castiel thought so—or knew that I could handle my own.
“Come on,” Jubilee sighed. “It won’t be that bad.”
But it was that bad.
Castiel hated me and I hated him.
“Hey, Cast!” Jubilee chirped.
I hated the chirping. It was too early in the morning for all that.
I absently twirled a ringlet of hair that’d escaped my bun around my finger and tried to decide what I was getting for breakfast.
Waffles sounded good, but I didn’t want only waffles. I wanted a hotdog, too.
I could also go for a couple of onion rings.
I could order breakfast and lunch, couldn’t I?
I mean sure, I wouldn’t be able to eat but a bite of each…but it’d be worth it…right?
“Turner?”
I blinked, looking over at Jubilee who was staring at me expectantly.
“What?” I mumbled.
“Castiel invited us to eat lunch with him,” she repeated.
My eyes finally met the man’s that was staring at us—me—as if he had a bad taste in his mouth.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
Did he just ask me to sit with him because he was being polite? Or did he not think I’d do it? That I didn’t have the guts?
Honestly, the man sitting in front of me, feet kicked out in front of him, arms crossed tightly across that broad chest of his, while he watched me with a challenge on his face, needed a come to Jesus.
He needed to stop acting like he was better than me.
“Sure.” I shrugged carelessly as if I didn’t’ have a care in the world. “But I only have like thirty minutes, so we can’t dilly dally.”